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March 14, 2018 (St. Helens, OR)—Columbia Riverkeeper filed an appeal today challenging Columbia County’s second attempt to open 837 acres of high-value agricultural land along the Columbia River to industrial development. 1000 Friends of Oregon, Oregon’s statewide land use watchdog, is joining

The 2018 Oregon legislative short session is coming to a close, sometime in the next two weeks, so we want to give you an update now. We will provide a full legislative summary when the session is complete. As a reminder, we shared a preview of this session just last month.
Thanks to the work of so many of

Growing up in New York, AKA “the concrete jungle,” I never had the real appreciation of outdoor space, but always felt an indescribable happiness when around it. A child of immigrants, I was brought up to work hard and make it work – “The immigrant hustle.” I found myself in jobs

At the beginning of the new year, 1000 Friends brought on Alexis Biddle to be our new Urban Circuit Rider. Alexis has a strong passion for social justice, affordable housing, transportation, and sustainable urban design more generally. The Urban Circuit Rider will complement the work done by our Rural Circuit

The 2018 Oregon Legislative “short” session will get underway on February 5 and will end no later than March 9. 1000 Friends will be tracking about two dozen bills dealing with farm and forest lands, transportation, and housing. These include bills we support and bills we strongly oppose.

Since its founding over forty years ago, 1000 Friends of Oregon has worked tirelessly to insure that Oregon has vibrant communities, healthy working lands, and unspoiled iconic places now and for future generations. The success of these activities is in no small part due to the dedication, passion, and leadership

In the late 1980’s Oregon’s wine industry was still in its infancy. In Southern Oregon there were only a handful of wineries when Don and Traute Moore started planting their vineyards. “When we came to this work, we knew nothing about planting grapes” mused Don. But through trial and error

Oregon’s towns and cities have not been building housing at nearly the pace the population has been growing and changing, and therefore we now have both a housing supply and a choice of housing types that is significantly out of step with need. This is a major contributor to our statewide housing

We’ve been hearing the statistics for years—about how Oregon agriculture is responsible for over $5.7 billion in sales, how it is connected to over $50 billion a year in economic activity, and how 1 in 8 jobs in Oregon is dependent in some way on agriculture.

What's New?

The Rajneeshee story has come back to life.
Unless you're living under a rock, you must be hearing all the buzz about the new Netflix 6-part documentary, Wild Wild Country, all about the 1980's Rajneeshee commune and one-time city, Rajneeshpuram. While presenting as a peaceful group trying to "create a lovely farm," leaders of this group became more and more hostile and violent. Our office was targeted with poisoned chocolates, and our legal teams were harassed by Rajneeshee cameras while attempting to do their job. 1000 Friends is featured in Wild Wild Country, though producers of the series never reached out to us. In the coming weeks, we intend to share details from our work on this complex and very odd case. Be sure to sign up for our email list to get more!

Interested in the Rajneeshee story? Be sure to check out these sources too.

A -7 (dash seven) amendment to House Bill 4060 would prevent a county from addressing any noise, water, dust or “other regulated environmental impacts” on neighbors when the operator has permits from other federal or state agencies. These amendments would eliminate the ability of a county to address specific impacts of an aggregate mine on neighboring lands and people.

1000 Friends of Oregon has spent four decades advocating for healthy, productive communities. We are pleased to continue our traditions with new programs, partnerships, and ongoing civic involvement.

The Circuit Rider is 1000 Friends of Oregon's new staff attorney who works on rural and underserved communities' legal issues related to land use. Our family farms and forest lands are pillars of Oregon's economy, and they need to be protected from sprawl and incompatible uses. The Circuit Rider program works to protect uses that support the rural economy and its participants, while preserving Oregon's iconic landscapes and special places.

We are thrilled to introduce Portland for Everyone, a new program aimed at encouraging Portland decision makers to encourage abundant, diverse, and affordable housing options throughout the city. Portland for Everyone sees great potential in Portland neighborhoods to act as game-changers for our housing needs by introducing diversified and new living spaces such as ADU's, internal conversions of single family homes to duplexes or triplexes, and other subtle ways to increase city housing options for everyone.